Two-Face: Duel and Duality

"At last, we meet, face to face — to face..."

I am a Batman fanatic — and damn proud of it! I grew up watching the Batman: The Animated Series, one of the best cartoons of the 1990s, and I have introduced the show to my little cousins, all seventeen of them, and they are as obsessed with the series as I am, hahahaha! My cousin Andrew, whose the biggest Penguin fan I have ever met, is a flowering artist. He has been drawing a great deal of Batman-related works recently, including an adorable drawing of a very grumpy Two-Face, and I drew this, based on his stylisation/design of the character, which is, of course, heavily influenced by the animated series:

District Attorney Harvey Dent, a man who had everything, was Bruce Wayne's best friend, and Gotham City's most handsome and charismatic crusader of justice, but he suffered from dissociative identity disorder (multiple personality disorder), as a result of from a history of child abuse and years of repressed anger. In the animated series, he was already psychological troubled well before his disfigurement. Dent's nemesis, the crime boss Rupert Thorne, got his hands on Dent's psychological records and threatened to blackmail him. Losing his temper and his control, the "Big Bad Harv" personality re-surfaced violently and went on a rampage, which eventually resulted in a massive explosion, damaging the left side of his face and body. Ruined and disfigured, both physically and psychologically, he became psychotic "Two-Face"! Subsequently, in the New Batman Adventures series, a third personality entered to reconcile Dent's law-and-order sensibility in the infamous form of "The Judge."

The first drawing at the top is portrays Two-Face's obsession with duality, making his all-important decisions by flipping a two-headed coin, one side of which is scarred. The second drawing concerns the über-complicated relationship between Two-Face and Grace, Dent's beloved fiancée, from the animated series. Two-Face, despite hating Dent with a passion, loved Grace, and she loved him, believing the man he was was still alive. Unfortunately, although an excellent character in her own right, we never see Grace again! Why? My theory is that, I believe, she was ultimately murdered by Rupert Thorne and, for melodramatics, she died in Two-Face's arms (hence all the blood in the second drawing). Poor, poor Harvey...

(If you never seen BTAS, check out this wonderful clip!)

Medium - HB mechanical pencil.

Harvey Dent/Two-Face © DC Comics.